As malt-based beverages, beer, happoshu (low-malt beer beverage), whisky, low-alcohol fermented beverages, non-alcohol beverages, and the like are known. Among these beverages, beer, happoshu, and whisky are produced from wort derived from malt. Wort is produced from milled malt by a milling machine and converting the milled malt, optionally supplemented with a material other than malt such as corn into sugars (saccharification) in a mash kettle or in a mash tun. After saccharification, the wort is filtered, added with hops in the case of producing beer and happoshu, and boiled in a brew kettle. Then the mash is made to precipitate in a whirlpool, and cooled cold wort is subjected to fermentation. In production of whisky, the filtered wort is fermented with yeast and then subjected to distillation and maturation.
Low-alcohol fermented beverages may be produced by preparing wort or cold wort as is the same with production of beer and happoshu and terminating the fermentation at a low alcohol concentration (for example, alcohol concentration of less than 1%), or by providing a process of removing alcohols. Non-alcohol beverages also include malt-based beverages that are produced by adding flavoring components or sugars to wort as necessary without conducting fermentation.
For example, in producing beer, which is one kind of malt-based beverage, it is possible to produce a variety of malt-based beverages with different flavor, foam quality, flavor stability, and haze stability, by selecting different kinds of starting malt and materials other than malt or varying the mash condition in production of wort, yeast species for use, fermentation condition and the like. To present, malt-based beverages having various flavors have been provided.
Although quality of malt which is a starting material is determined by the cultivar and quality of barley and by the malting condition, the effect of changing the flavor presented by malt itself is limited because malt which is a starting material is generally milled by a milling machine and the resultant malt is directly saccharified or supplemented with a material other than malt such as corn before saccharification. In the current state of art, production of various malt-based beverages having different flavors relies on selections of materials other than malt. In order to change the flavor of a malt-based beverage further or improve the foam quality, flavor stability, and haze stability, it is necessary to control the malt ingredient which is a starting material more specifically.
As such measures, there are proposed wort from which deterioration precursors contained in husk are removed by separating malt into grains and husk, and washing the separated husk or soaking it in water or warm water before using it together with the grains, or a process for producing beer having increased flavor stability by removing polyphenols (Patent document 1, Patent document 2).
Also proposed are a process for producing wort or various methods of producing beer using, as a starting material, malt from which husk is removed in order to remove polyphenols or the materials which are believed to be deterioration precursors in production of beer (Patent document 3, Patent document 4, and Patent document 5).
[Patent document 1] Japanese Patent Publication No. Sho 62-47514
[Patent document 2] Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 2-117377
[Patent document 3] Japanese Patent Publication No. Hei 4-39313
[Patent document 4] Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Sho 63-32475
[Patent document 5] Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Sho 63-68068
However, these methods are no more than solutions for the problems posed by husk of malt that is believed to adversely affect the production of beer, and they do not relate to the art that fractionates tissues of malt other than husk and examines the characteristics of each of the fractionated tissue fractions.
As to other malt-based beverages, none of them discuss fractionation of tissues of malt and characteristics possessed by the fractionated tissue fractions.
Dry germinated barley is composed histologically of a husk portion, an endothelial layer portion, an endosperm portion, an acrospire portion, and a malt rootlets portion, as shown in FIG. 1, and contents of components such as starch, protein, enzyme, and the like are known to differ among these tissue portions. Therefore, malt-based beverages of various different flavors can be obtained by fractionating these tissue portions, examining respective characteristics of the fractionated tissue portions, and blending and using the materials in combination as a starting material, however, nobody has attempted to accurately separate these tissue portions, and adjust the composition to prepare malt-based beverages.
Methods of widely adjusting components in beverage are now available such as significantly changing flavor of a malt-based beverage and dramatically improving foam quality, flavor stability, and haze stability, however, no such conventional methods have relied on a selection of a starting material to achieve such effects.